I'm not always the smartest shopper out there. This was driven home tonight as I got home from the grocery store and opened the crate of half-priced trail-bologna that I'd just purchased at Shop-Rite. I realized, too late at this point, that meat is usually deep-discounted for a very good reason. This has put me in a reflective mood. Here's some other purchases I've made over the years that I've later come to regret:
12/8/97--Year-long membership at Bob's Bath-House. (I had a slipped disk at the time; didn't realize the place wasn't geared toward occupational therapy.)
5/29/99--Dill personal computer. (Not the brand I thought it was.)
3/13/91--Complete set of He-Man Pogs. (Didn't realize that the Pog craze had basically reached it's apex. Set me back a couple hundred dollars.)
10/18/03--Clay Aiken's Measure of a Man. (...)
9/10/01--Time-share in Kabul, Afghanistan. (A cousin of mine needed someone to go in on it with him.)
1/22/87--Economy-size box of Trojan Ribbed Condoms. (I was, in hindsight, overly optimistic about the next seven years.)
4/1/03--I Can't Believe It's Not Coleslaw! (Short-lived coleslaw substitute was discontinued after reports of rectal bleeding. I made one of those reports.)
10/13/78--Mork suspenders. (Used birthday money to buy trendy accessory, which was subsequently used by a fifth-grader to give me the most painful wedgie in recorded history.)
7/30/99--KitchenAide Flantastic. ($150 gadget. Haven't made a lot of flan.)
12/27/92--Taiwanese mail-order bride. (Drunk and lonely over Christmas break. Turned out to be a 75-year-old man in a wig. Nice guy, though. We still trade birthday cards.)
I think I've gotten smarter in the last couple of years about this sort of thing. At the very least, I haven't bought knock-off dentures in awhile. Now, does anybody out there want to buy some delicious, ever-so-slightly green trail bologna?
